EVEN before New Taipei’s duel with Meralco in the EASL Home and Away Season last Wednesday night began, Filipino fans at the ringside section of the PhilSports Arena in Pasig patiently waited for someone to emerge from the dugout.
Most of them wore the New York Knicks jerseys of the player who enjoyed a brief fling with NBA glory a decade ago. Jeremy Lin has remained a crowd favorite here.
“The fanbase here is unreal. I came out here, I think it’s 2013, I played one pre-season game and right after that, we went to Taipei for the next pre-season game,” Lin said after his Kings whipped the Bolts 89-77. “My parents were born and raised in Taipei.
“People asked me how the experience was and honestly, it was pretty crazy,” he added.
Lin, 35, saw action in the NBA, most notably with the Knicks for a decade that included winning a crown with the Toronto Raptors in 2019.
The Philippines is a top destination due to its people’s treatment of the sport like a religion, according to Lin.
“A lot of my former teammates. . . they talk about after the summer, in the offseason like, we went to an endorsement tour, we have to do this, where we are going,” Lin said.
“The Philippines is a top, top, top destination that everybody wants to be at. That’s like, for sure.”
While he already played in the country in a pre-season tiff as a member of the Houston Rockets who battled the Indiana Pacers at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay, Lin said the Filipinos’ passion for basketball never waned.
“It’s a different experience. When I came here in 2013, it was with the NBA, it’s the Rockets and the Pacers. We are talking about a whole different level of, I mean that thing was, we literally couldn’t barely walk in the lobby of our hotel,” he said.
“I remember we went to (Mall of Asia), there were hundreds of people following us. Obviously, it was a different level of production, marketing, and awareness. “But you just feel the enthusiasm everywhere even with the interactions, one-on-one, one-on-two, you feel that deep passion for basketball. You feel it everywhere you go.”
